by Laura Gill
The deeper they descended, the more oppressive the air became. Full night had fallen, further reducing visibility, and Aranaru suspected that even at high noon the lowermost part of the light-well did not receive much illumination.
At the bottom of the staircase, Nikanur circumvented a storm drain under repair, and led the party down a long, dog-leg passage partially obstructed by neat stacks of equipment indicating where Eshmal’s crew had stopped working for the day. Aranaru shivered in his woolen vestments. The lowermost level smelled of old incense, stone, and naked earth, and he recalled that the building’s foundation had been set into the hillside, appropriate to the worship of Mother Rhaya and the subterranean aspect of the Earth-Shaker and Great Bull.
Humusi had said that the sanctuary was the prison of a half-man, half-bull monster. Aranaru saw now where the perpetual shadows and mazelike turnings might, indeed, harbor such a creature. Once, he found himself holding his breath lest the bull-man scent his apprehension and leap out at him or, more likely, cause the god to shake the earth again.
His rational mind attempted to make sense of the route according to the ancient floor plan archived in the shrine that had once been Daidalos’s cubicle. There was a more direct path to their destination—the anterooms and hallways through which Nikanur led them served the main sanctuary—but as his father had told him back in the days when everyone thought that Aranaru would become a priest of Poteidan like his brother, the Earth-Shaker’s servants did not approach him via the same route by which they left.
A lamp burned through a doorway up ahead, and before Aranaru realized it, he and his companions were standing in the sanctuary of Poteidan, facing a high-backed wooden throne upon which sat a lifelike image of the goddess Rhaya. Banabiru and another bull priest flanked her. To the right, a set of wooden doors closed off the innermost sanctum.
As he contemplated the doors, the goddess’s image appeared to move at his periphery. Focusing on her, he realized then that the enthroned goddess was not a cleverly wrought xoanon but High Priestess Ereka herself, dressed in full regalia. Aranaru understood now. The high priestess had not violated the prohibition against women entering the god’s sanctuary, for it was the immortal Rhaya, Poteidan’s own consort, who sat upon the wooden throne; the mortal woman Ereka was merely the vessel.
A middle-aged man crouched on a footstool at her feet. Aranaru’s gaze passed over the stranger to study his brother. Despite the splendor of his regalia, Banabiru looked deeply troubled.
Nikanur placed his lamp on the floor, then approached the throne and, bowing until bent almost double, reverenced the goddess. Everyone else followed suit. “Great Lady,” he said, “you have summoned us, the priests of Poteidan and the priest-architects of Daidalos, in Lord Poteidan’s name. What is your command?”
The sound that issued from the woman’s mouth was not the voice of High Priestess Ereka. Aranaru heard in it the warmth of a mother’s lullaby and the lamentations of women at the graveside, a lover’s husky laughter, and a child’s exclamation. The voice of the immortal goddess was measured and ageless. It would endure long after the mortal supplicants in that sanctuary—and even the sanctuary itself—were dust.
“The Great Bull has taken High Priest Urtanos. His servant Ahano has returned to us with the news.”
Aranaru did not immediately comprehend her meaning. His mind wandered, wondering why a goddess needed a mortal man to be her message bearer. Then he caught Banabiru’s stricken gaze, and it hit him. High Priest Urtanos had not been “taken.” He was dead.
Nikanur and the other priests of Poteidan knelt to touch their foreheads to the ground, leaving the priests of Daidalos standing there without direction. “Benevolent Lady, great Rhaya,” Nikanur intoned, his brow still pressed against the paving stones, “tell us the manner of his passing.”
When allowed to speak, the middle-aged man at the high priestess’s feet described the day’s events. He was the caretaker of a small sanctuary below Mount Juktas where Urtanos had chosen to perform the sacrifice. “The high priest came to the hill this morning with his servants and the victim. I went about my business, your honors, tending the vegetables outside my hut, sweeping the porch, while the priests served the god. Then the earth shook.” The apple in Ahano’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “The whole building fell in. I tried to go in after the priests.” Aranaru heard the desperation in his voice. “I called out. Nobody answered. And then the fire started, and I smelled...” Unable to continue, Ahano buried his face in his weathered hands.
The high priestess did not move a muscle throughout all this, nor did the bull priests. Aranaru knew why. He himself stood frozen, unable to process what he had heard. High Priest Urtanos, dead? And during the offering of a human victim in the god’s own sanctuary? What had angered Poteidan so, that he would kill his own high priest?
After an uncomfortable silence broken only by the caretaker’s muffled weeping, Haddal, the bull priest standing on the high priestess’s left, said, “This is a terrible omen.”
“What sin could Urtanos have committed, to bring the Great Bull’s wrath upon his head?” a priest asked.
“He was not ruthless enough in rooting out the transgressions that incited the god’s anger in the first place.” Nikanur was tall and strongly built like his late first cousin, but forbidding where Urtanos had been approachable. “Blasphemy must be punished with the severity it deserves. The workers must bathe every morning before entering the temple. Menstruating women must not be allowed to dedicate their labor, and adulterers and thieves must do penance before making offerings.”
Aranaru resisted the urge to expel an exasperated sigh. Nikanur represented exactly the kind of sanctimonious overzealousness that he disliked in priests. Glancing over at his brother, he could not get Banabiru to return his gaze. Surely his brother did not hold that morning’s argument against him, after everything that had happened since.
Eshmal raised an objection. “Only the high priest can pass such harsh edicts, Nikanur. Urtanos’s heir is his eldest son.”
“Who has not yet been initiated and is too young,” an older priest pointed out. “Someone else must lead us.”
“We will preside over the conclave to choose a new high priest.” The high priestess called them all to attention. “There is a precedent which allows us to assist in installing a high priest. The goddess speaks through us. She will walk again in this sanctuary. She will undertake to soothe the god’s anger. Pray to her, mortal men. Beseech her for enlightenment.”
All the priests of Poteidan reverenced her. “Grant us your wisdom, Lady!” Nikanur made a spectacle of his obeisance, spreading his arms and bowing lower than all the others. Aranaru suspected that he was more than happy to reverence the high priestess-as-goddess, as long the election went his way.
The high priestess did not acknowledge his praise, but focused her attention on the priests of Daidalos. “Priest-Architect Eshmal.” Straightening his posture, Eshmal inclined his head. “You will continue with the rebuilding. The gods demand this evidence of piety. You will report directly to us.”
“Yes, Lady,” Eshmal answered.
The priests of Poteidan were impatient to resolve their own agenda, and interrupted even before the priest-architects finished their collective reverence. “We must bury High Priest Urtanos.” Zidanta, the eldest priest, was an even greater zealot than Nikanur. Aranaru was certain that he would promote himself as Urtanos’s successor. Too bad bull priests were ineligible for the office. Banabiru would make a much better high priest than any of the potential candidates.
The high priestess remained impassive. “We will not anger the Great Bull by disturbing the site unless he instructs us otherwise.”
A younger priest coughed anxiously. “Lady, Head Priestess of Ashera Arishat was also killed this morning.”
Zidanta turned on him. “What has that to do with the present situation?”
“Ashera is an aspect of the Lady, as you seem to have overlo
oked,” Nikanur argued. “The head serpent priestess was killed trying to entice the holy snakes back to the Labyrinth, a matter of great importance to us all—unless, of course, you disagree.” His smooth tone could not conceal the barb of his disdain for Zidanta. The conclave promised to be a contentious affair, and one which Aranaru was not sorry to miss.
When the high priestess dissolved the meeting, the sanctuary emptied, and everyone returned to the staircase by a more direct route. Aranaru had hoped that Banabiru might accompany him upstairs and exchange a few words, but the bull priest who fell in step with him on the stairs was his father’s long-time colleague, Haddal.
“Aranaru,” the old man murmured, “delay your leaving. The high priestess wishes to speak with you.”
Aranaru could easily guess why, and it had nothing to do with architecture. He had hoped to avoid involving her, but the temple was a much smaller world than outsiders realized. Ereka was, after all, the girl’s sponsor. Whatever affected Gula reflected on her, as well.
The lady he reverenced on the portico looking out on the ramp to the central courtyard seemed to have diminished in stature in the interval it had taken to climb the stairs. In the lamplight, he noticed the wrinkled skin of her bosom and face under her white goddess paint. Her teeth were small and shrew-like, and the oiled curls fringing her forehead showed reddish highlights where her women rinsed her graying hair with henna. She was Ereka again, no longer the goddess.
“Priest-Architect Aranaru, I understand there is contention between you and the family of Scribe Abdesh.” Her voice conjured no images of sacred caves or woodland groves, only the impression of weariness. “You argued with him and your brother this afternoon?”
Aranaru wished he had had a bit more time to rehearse his response. “Unfortunately, yes. I have come to the conclusion that I would not make a suitable husband for his daughter.”
“Does your reasoning have anything to do with a certain incident regarding an agate necklace?”
What did she want with him, he wondered, when she already seemed to know everything? Aranaru squeezed his eyes shut, held them so for a moment, then slowly opened them again. It had been a long, disheartening day. “With all due respect, my lady—”
“Yes, yes.” Ereka waved his objection aside, her tone suggesting that she had heard every excuse under the sun and moon. “Gula is young and naive in her opinions, and desires a handsome young man to quicken her blood. Yes, I understand. I was young once, too. But this marriage is not about love, Aranaru. Give Gula a child and household to run, and she will outgrow her girlish wants. In time, she may come to appreciate you better.”
Gula would do no such thing, and his gut told him so. She would probably cuckold him the first chance she got. “My lady, forgive me, but this contract was a mistake. I do not wish to marry the girl, and she does not wish to marry me.” Aranaru shook his head. “I would not have time for her, anyway, with the rebuilding of the temple.”
Ereka wore a look of profound disappointment. “Have you considered the consequences of breaking your betrothal? Gula’s reputation would suffer. Abdesh would take your rejection of her as an insult, unless you offered suitable compensation. You are not a wealthy man.”
Aranaru decided not to mince words any longer. “I do not care about the payment. You speak of insults? Gula insulted me by throwing my present—which I agonized over—into the latrine ditch as though it was nothing. She does not want me, she will never want me, and I do not want her.” Every word cost him another ounce of pride. “I will not have a wife who cuckolds me behind my back while I am away working. I will not be the butt of jokes, and gods only know, but that stupid girl would gladly do it.”
Ereka opened her mouth to interject, probably to dismiss his concerns as a bridegroom’s jitters, but Aranaru kept going. “Don’t defend her, High Priestess. I can see it in her eyes. She finds me dull and repulsive. As for her reputation, why should that be a problem? I am only a lowly priest-architect, not the bull priest her father wanted. No dowry was paid. Her maidenhead is intact. I never laid a hand on her, as your women well know.”
Then there was nothing more to say. He had to wait on the high priestess’s pleasure, when it was clear that she was displeased. And she did not reply right away, but, letting her gaze roam the darkened portico, the lantern her attendant carried, the incline of the ramp leading to the central court—everywhere but on him—she deliberately drew out the anticipation.
“Aranaru,” she finally said, “your family is deeply disappointed in you. I am disappointed in you.”
“My family has been disappointed in me before.” Aranaru could not speak for her, or help the situation. Had Gula not revealed the true extent of her feelings by throwing away his gift, he could have believed there was hope. “One more disappointment will not change anything.”
*~*~*~*
Narkitsa should have breathed easier. Arishat was gone, and Ashluli, the new head priestess, asked little of her beyond the usual chores of sweeping the sanctuary, offering mice and milk to the serpent Ehat had found before the temblor, and doing laundry. Her distress over Arishat’s death had been unfeigned, though more from the horror of having just murdered someone than actual remorse, so no one suspected her crime.
Had she been obliged to confess her true feelings, Narkitsa would have had to admit that where her life under Arishat had been hard, now it was hellish, and she could not comprehend why. Over the years, she had lied and cheated and committed petty thefts, and done so without the slightest remorse. Why should it matter that she had dispatched Arishat to the nether world? The bitch had deserved it. Why should she regret doing that which had lessened her burden? Was it possible that she had a conscience, after all?
Narkitsa rejected the notion at first. If she regretted anything, it was that the landslide had not done the job, forcing her to get blood on her hands. If she feared anything, it was not a ghost. A formless shade could not compete with the flesh-and-blood bully who had dominated more than half her life. Narkitsa was free. Now she meant to enjoy her freedom.
Until she realized that the dead could haunt the living in ways she had not imagined. Arishat appeared to her in nightmares where she relived the quake and landslide, yet only this time the earth yawned open and swallowed her whole, and she sprawled paralyzed in the cold, damp darkness of the underworld while demons tormented her, and faceless beings passed judgment on her. Narkitsa at first dismissed her dreams as trauma from the quake—she herself had almost been caught by that landslide, after all—and reassured herself that with time the uncomfortable emotions would go away.
Then there were the serpent dreams, which had always plagued her, but now struck her worse than before. Long ago, she had noticed that whenever something troubled her in her waking life, Ashera with her perverse sense of humor sent her messengers to heighten Narkitsa’s trepidation. On nights when she was not falling headlong into the dark earth, Narkitsa suffered under a mound of writhing snakes, and when she opened her mouth to scream, no sound came out. She woke drenched with sweat and gasping for air.
The gods were punishing her. Of course they would—they heard and saw everything—and yet that fact somehow managed to surprise her. Ashera had ruled her life for so long that she had half-forgotten the other deities. That knowledge brought fresh uncertainty. The high priest of Poteidan had been killed in the same temblor as Arishat. Had the Great Bull punished Urtanos for the sin that she had committed? Narkitsa did not believe that even as she considered it. The gods who saw and heard everything made no mistakes.
She told herself to remain calm. Poteidan did not care about her sins, or she would be dead. Rhaya had never deigned to notice her after her twelfth year, when she had experienced her first moon blood, or else the goddess would have bestowed on her the twin blessings of love and fruitfulness.
Narkitsa did not regret Arishat’s death. No. Never. What bothered her, she decided, was High Priest Nikanur’s strict new policies. After proclaiming that
the people’s sins had angered the gods, his spies infiltrated the temple, town, and encampment. No one knew quite who they were, because they could be anyone, and people were encouraged to inform on their neighbors, and even on their own family members. Yet there they were, scrutinizing everything and everyone, seeking to fulfill their quota of blasphemers. Narkitsa watched with growing anxiety as people were assigned specific penances for minor offenses, and fined, flogged, or even exiled for major ones.
Ashluli attempted to soothe the concerns of the priestesses of Ashera by explaining that, “Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear.” Nikanur’s words. Narkitsa took it as a barb aimed at her, even though her rational mind kept repeating that no one suspected anything of her. Only she, Arishat’s ghost, and the immortal gods knew, and they were not going to manifest themselves to Nikanur to divulge the secret, because the high priest did not strike her as the sort of man who listened to the gods. The blasphemies that he punished seemed to her to be more imagined than real.
Rumors were already flying that High Priestess Ereka and the priesthood of Poteidan were dissatisfied with Nikanur’s excessive measures. Then why had they elected him in the first place? The conclave, like so much of what went on in the Poteidan sanctuary, was hush-hush. Narkitsa had overheard a priestess of Amaya whisper to a friend that Minos Khalanas loudly objected to the informants he had discovered in his house, and was forming a faction with the high priestess to oust Nikanur.
Narkitsa should have informed on the woman and her friend right away. She preferred not to attract the attention of the high priest’s servants, though, and kept her mouth shut.